1000 Mile Bike Evaluations

So if you have read much about my own experience on this blog you'll know that I do a lot of bike commuting: for this I use two bikes, one for when I have my kids and one that is easier to store in my office and that therefore I often use when I don't have the kids with me. The bigger bike is an Aventon Abound (the original, not the SR or LR variants they've introduced) and the smaller is a Lectric XP 2 step through (which has been replaced by later models as well).

My commute is pretty short, so I recently hit 1000 miles on each bike. As such, I thought it might be worthwhile to provide a brief comparative review of my experience with both bikes. Overall it has been quite positive, but there are differences that are worth knowing about.

1. Build Quality: Lectric Good, Aventon Meh

I have a friend who has an Urban Arrow and a Tern HSD. Neither of my bikes is that fancy or expensive, and you can tell from the build quality. 

The Lectric is the older bike by a year, but has had fewer incidents. Some pieces have come off from some hard riding (it's not the bike's fault I repeatedly hit a particular especially high curb with my pedal on my way to work) but the only times I've not been able to ride have been a couple flat tubes, which are easily fixed and not really avoidable with tubes. It has had a few issues with its suspension; the piece that allows it to lock or unlock the suspension travel broke off. But again, the bike remains consistently usable.

The Abound has had more flats (heavier load with 2 kids on the back, unsurprisingly) but also has had a tendency to have the seatpost snap where it holds on the seat; I'm not overweight as a rider, but I did use two (now three) seatpost brands, so it's not just an Aventon seatpost issue. I do think there may be something about how the seating/pedaling position distributes my weight on the seat/seatpost combination.

I recommend each, but I'd definitely want a local bike shop willing to service them both (Healthy Habits QC, here in the Quad Cities, gets a shoutout for that).

2. Usefulness: Bigger Is, In This Case, Better

I like my Lectric, and I can and do use it for a lot--but the Abound is a true longtail cargo bike and it shows. I can get two kids from school, go grocery shopping, and have my own work bag on the bike and it all fits. It's tight with a full grocery run but doable, and that means it literally can be a car replacement for at least major sections of the year (not sure I'd really want that in deep winter here given temps and ice).  

Lectric: 1 kid

Abound for two!

I like to think of it this way: the Lectric unlocked the ability to do errands and live life without a car. The Abound makes it actually pleasant to do that. 

You can still get a lot on a Lectric, but note that I had to omit the kid.

The Lectric has one advantage, noted above: being a bit smaller it's easier to store. It can make it into the elevator at work and be stored in my office directly; the Abound I have to lock up outside on a bike rack. That does mean there are tasks it is better suited for; but for everyday, who-knows-what-will-happen, single-bike use, I'd take the Abound.

3. Riding Experience: Torque Sensors and Actual Exercise 

So the Lectric brand has, I believe, finally moved towards torque sensors over cadence sensors: that is, the electric part of the bike responds to how hard I pedal in terms of my force, not in terms of how fast that actually turns the pedals. This is, I think, great. My Lectric has a cadence sensor and sometimes feels like a scooter, because once the pedals are going they don't really stop until you brake. The Abound, by contrast, feels more like regular biking, where I have to keep pedaling and get actual exercise, as well as having better responsiveness to my actual pedaling. Now, neither of them is a mid-drive (they both have hub drives in the rear wheel) so that may in turn affect things if you're looking at other types of bikes. But for these two, it makes a huge difference.

Like the usefulness, I think the Lectric is perfectly fine--but the Abound is a better choice here. I would rather bike on it, and it's both more fun and more effective for my needs.

Now, I do plan on keeping both. It's useful sometimes to have more than one bike available, especially if one actually isn't available (looking at you, Abound seatposts). And I do like being able to sometimes just park in my office. But that's my comparative review after 1000 miles on each bike: the true cargo bike with a torque sensor is, perhaps unsurprisingly, my favorite.

Which is good, because it certainly also cost more.

And of course there are smaller bikes you could buy (and I do indeed have a Jetson that has nothing like 1000 miles on it). But I hope this is useful for those who might consider the Lectric XP 2 (or other) or the Abound.